Tight oligopolies and the need for ex ante regulation – Why BEREC is right and ETNO is wrong

August 2015

- BEREC published in June 2015 a draft report (link) on the future regulatory treatment of oligopolies in the context of ex ante regulation
- There are substantial empirical market evidences supporting the notion that close to half of EU’s mobile markets exhibit tight oligopoly non- or sub-competitive market outcomes
- In 2012 Rewheel used for the first time empirical market evidences such as mobile internet access prices and type of operators present (E5 or independent challengers) to characterize effective competition in EU’s 28 national markets
- In 2013 and 2014 we published research backed by empirical market evidences on three non-coordinated potentially anticompetitive tight oligopoly effects: a) protecting fixed broadband revenues from mobile broadband b) protecting group wide revenues across the European footprint c) favouring own services with price discrimination (zero-rating)
- During the 4th quarter of 2015 Rewheel will publish “tight oligopoly index” rankings based on empirical market metrics

In June 2018 Elisa became the first operator in the world to launch commercial service over its 5G (3.5 GHz) network in Tampere Finland and Tallinn Estonia. Elisa invited Rewheel to try its 5G network.